Hiring a trades person is not always a happy experience
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WHEN Niamh Coleman bought her house three and a half years ago, she was introduced to the world of dealing with trades people. Her first experience in hiring someone to do her tiling was not a happy one.
"He said he'd come on the following Monday and I arranged to be off work and he never turned up and he never even rang," she said.
While he did an OK job, he never returned to finish some work on a downstairs toilet.
"It was such a horrendous experience I got put off doing anything for a while," she says.
Eventually, she decided to put down wooden floors. However, this time a Google search came up with Homewise.ie, an online directory and information centre on home improvements.
"It was brilliant," she says. "You can search for whatever trade you need, then you can search for your area."
It also allows consumers to rate the work carried out by different people and has a section where people give their comments, a service Ms Coleman found very useful.
She found a tradesman, David Heffernan, to put her floors down and was delighted with the result.
"Homewise takes the mystery and headache out of home improvements and it is a very satisfying and reliable experience. There is no way that tiler would have behaved in such a manner if he had been connected to a site like this," adds Ms Coleman.
